In the dying moments Dino Zoff made a miraculous save to deny Oscar a goal, ensuring that Italy advanced to the semi-final. In the last group, Group D, France dispatched Austria 1—0 with a free kick goal by Bernard Genghini , and then defeated Northern Ireland 4—1 to reach their first semi-final since In a re-match of the encounter in the first round, Italy beat Poland in the first semi-final through two goals from Paolo Rossi.

In the game between France and West Germany, the Germans opened the scoring through a Pierre Littbarski strike in the 17th minute, and the French equalised nine minutes later with a Michel Platini penalty.

In the second half a long through ball sent French defender Patrick Battiston racing clear towards the German goal. With both Battiston and the lone German defender trying to be the first to reach the ball, Battiston flicked it past German keeper Harald Schumacher from the edge of the German penalty area and Schumacher reacted by jumping up to block.

Schumacher didn't seem to go for the ball, however, and clattered straight into the oncoming Battiston — which left the French player unconscious and knocked two of his teeth out.

Schumacher's action has been described as "one of history's most shocking fouls". Play was interrupted for several minutes while Battiston, still unconscious and with a broken jaw, was carried off the field on a stretcher.

After French defender Manuel Amoros had sent a metre drive crashing onto the West German crossbar in the final minute, the match went into extra time.

Six minutes later, an unmarked Alain Giresse drove in an metre shot off the inside of the right post to finish off a counter-attack and put France up 3—1.

But West Germany would not give up. In the nd minute a counter-attack culminated in a cross that recent substitute Karl-Heinz Rummenigge turned in at the near post from a difficult angle with the outside of his foot, reducing France's lead to 3—2.

Then in the th minute Germany took a short corner and after France failed to clear, the ball was played by Germany to Littbarski whose cross to Horst Hrubesch was headed back to the centre towards Klaus Fischer , who was unmarked but with his back to goal.

Fischer in turn volleyed the ball past French keeper Jean-Luc Ettori with a bicycle kick , levelling the scores at 3—3. The match went to penalties , with France and West Germany participating in the first penalty shootout at a World Cup finals.

But then Schumacher stepped forward, lifted the tearful Stielike from the ground, and saved Didier Six 's shot.

With Germany handed the lifeline they needed Littbarski converted his penalty, followed by Platini for France, and then Rummenigge for Germany as the tension mounted.

France defender Maxime Bossis then had his kick parried by Schumacher who anticipated it, and Hrubesch stepped up to score and send Germany to the World Cup final yet again with a victory on penalties, 5—4.

In the third-place match, Poland edged the French side 3—2 which matched Poland's best performance at a World Cup previously achieved in France would go on to win the European Championship two years later.

In the final, Antonio Cabrini fired a penalty wide of goal in the first half. In the second half, Paolo Rossi scored first for the third straight game by heading home Gentile's bouncing cross at close range.

Exploiting the situation, Italy scored twice more on quick counter-strikes, all the while capitalising on their defence to hold the Germans.

With Gentile and Gaetano Scirea holding the centre, the Italian strikers were free to counter-punch the weakened German defence. Marco Tardelli 's shot from the edge of the area beat Schumacher first, and Alessandro Altobelli , the substitute for injured striker Francesco Graziani , made it 3—0 at the end of a solo sprint down the right side by the stand-out winger Bruno Conti.

Italy's lead appeared secure, encouraging Italian president Sandro Pertini to wag his finger at the cameras in a playful "not going to catch us now" gesture.

In the 83rd minute, Paul Breitner scored for West Germany, but it was only a consolation goal as Italy won 3—1 to claim their first World Cup title in 44 years, and their third in total.

Italy became the first team to advance from the first round without winning a game, drawing all three while Cameroon were eliminated in the same way by virtue of having only one goal scored against Italy's two , and also the only World Cup winner to draw or lose three matches at the Finals.

By winning, Italy equalled Brazil's record of winning the World Cup three times. Italy's year-old captain-goalkeeper Dino Zoff became the oldest player to win the World Cup.

This particular World Cup was organised in such a way that all of the matches of each of the six groups were assigned stadiums in cities near to each other, in order to reduce the stress of travel on the players and fans.

When the tournament went into the round-robin second round matches, all the aforementioned cities excluding Barcelona, Alicante and Seville did not host any more matches in Espana ' The 24 qualifiers were divided into four groupings which formed the basis of the draw for the group stage.

FIFA announced the six seeded teams on the day of the draw and allocated them in advance to the six groups; as had become standard, the host nation and the reigning champions were among the seeds.

The remaining 18 teams were split into three pots based on FIFA's assessment of the team's strength, but also taking in account geographic considerations.

The seedings and group venues for those teams were tentatively agreed at an informal meeting in December but not officially confirmed until the day of the draw.

FIFA executive Hermann Neuberger told the press that the seeding of England had been challenged by other nations but they were to be seeded as "the Spanish want England to play in Bilbao for security reasons".

On 16 January the draw was conducted at the Palacio de Congresos in Madrid, where the teams were drawn out from the three pots to be placed with the seeded teams in their predetermined groups.

The teams were then drawn one-by-one and entered in the groups in that order. A number was then drawn to determine the team's "position" in the group and hence the fixtures.

The only stipulation of the draw was that no group could feature two South American teams. As a result, Pot B — which contained two South American teams — was initially drawn containing only the four Europeans, which were then to be immediately allocated to Groups 3 and 6 which contained the two South American seeds Argentina and Brazil.

Once these two groups had been filled with the entrants from Pot B, then Chile and Peru would be added to the pot and the draw continue as normal.

Teams were ranked on the following criteria: The second round of matches consisted of four 3-way round-robin groups, each confined to one stadium in one of Spain's two largest cities: The winners of each one of these groups would progress to the semi-finals.

Although the fixtures were provisionally determined in advance, the teams competing in each fixture depended on the result of the opening match in each group: Should a team be defeated in the opening game of the group, that team would then have to play in the second fixture against the team not participating in the opening group game; the winner of the opening game would, by contrast, be rewarded by not needing to play again until the final fixture of the group and therefore gained extra recovery time.

If the opening game was a draw, the predetermined order of games would proceed as planned. These regulations helped ensure that the final group games were of importance as no team could already have progressed to the semi-finals by the end of the second fixtures.

The 43,capacity Sarria Stadium in Barcelona, used for the Group C round-robin matches between Italy, Argentina and Brazil was, unlike any of the other matches except 1 in the other groups, severely overcrowded for all 3 matches.

The venue was then heavily criticised for its lack of space and inability to handle such rampant crowds; although no one had foreseen such crowds at all; the Group A matches held at the nearby and much larger 99,capacity Camp Nou stadium never went past 65, and hosted all European teams; it was anticipated there would be larger crowds for the Camp Nou-hosted second round matches between Belgium, the Soviet Union and Poland.

Paolo Rossi received the Golden Boot for scoring six goals. In total, goals were scored by players, with only one of them credited as own goal.

In , FIFA published a report that ranked all teams in each World Cup up to and including , based on progress in the competition, overall results and quality of the opposition.

The official mascot of this World Cup was Naranjito , an anthropomorphised orange , a typical fruit in Spain, wearing the kit of the host's national team.

Its name comes from naranja , the Spanish word for orange, and the diminutive suffix "-ito". Chapters had a duration of 20 minutes and the main character was Naranjito.

The series lasted for 26 episodes and the theme was football, adventures and World Cup of Naranjito was accompanied by other characters, as his girlfriend Clementina , his friend Citronio and Imarchi the robot.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Countries qualified for World Cup. Country failed to qualify. Countries that did not enter World Cup.

Country not a FIFA member. I was born with that scream inside me, that was just the moment it came out. Camp Nou , Barcelona.

Juan Daniel Cardellino Uruguay. Archived from the original on 27 September Retrieved 20 May Retrieved 17 June Retrieved 28 December Retrieved 16 June Glasgow Herald page Guardian News and Media.

Archived from the original on 6 October Retrieved 25 February Retrieved 1 July Winning at All Costs: A Scandalous History of Italian Soccer.